Onboarding guide
From account to first message
Everything a campaign does on its side, in order. The same guide lives on your page once you create an account, next to the form for each step.
| Step | Who | Typical time |
|---|---|---|
| Create your BeehiveText account and fill in the committee details | You | 10 minutes, plus a day to gather documents |
| Twilio account: create, upgrade, grant access | You | 15 minutes |
| Campaign Verify | You | Same day to two business days |
| Sign-up website with privacy policy and SMS terms | Us, built from your site; you review it | Minutes |
| Brand, number and campaign registration | Us | 1 day once the token and pages are ready |
| Carrier vetting | Carriers | 1 to 5 business days |
| Portal login, list import, test message | Us, then you | Same day as approval |
1. Your committee's legal identity
The carriers register a legal entity, so we need the details exactly as they appear on your IRS letter.
- Exact legal name from the EIN letter (IRS form CP 575).
- EIN. No EIN means no Campaign Verify and no political texting. A committee that has a bank account already has one. It is the committee's own number, not the candidate's Social Security number. Otherwise apply free at irs.gov in one sitting of about ten minutes (the form resets after 15 idle minutes; it is open weekdays 6 a.m. to 1 a.m. Eastern, shorter hours on weekends). Under Legal Structure choose View Additional Types, Including Tax-Exempt and Governmental Organizations, then Political Organization, then Started a new business as the reason. The next screens ask for the responsible party (the treasurer or the candidate, with their Social Security number), the committee's street and mailing address, and its exact name as filed with the elections office. The number appears on screen immediately; download the confirmation letter (CP 575) right then, because you cannot come back for it, and give us the EIN and legal name exactly as printed.
- Mailing address and a website that is live today.
- Your public filing. In Utah, your committee's page at disclosures.utah.gov; federal committees use their FEC page. Campaign Verify sends its PIN to the contact on that filing.
- One authorized person (treasurer, candidate or manager) with a mobile number that can receive a text.
2. The Twilio account you'll own
Have these ready before you start (about 15 minutes):
- An email address for the committee that your team can check. A shared campaign mailbox is better than a personal one, because Twilio's notices go there.
- A mobile phone that can receive a verification code.
- A credit or debit card. Twilio bills your card for messages at its own rates; there is no markup. Some prepaid cards are declined.
- Your committee's legal name and mailing address as they appear on your EIN letter, for the billing profile.
Step 1 — Create the Twilio account
- Go to twilio.com/try-twilio. Enter your name, the committee email, and a strong password. Keep the password somewhere your treasurer can find it; the account belongs to the committee, not to us.
- Open the verification email and click the link.
- Enter your mobile number and the code Twilio texts you. Twilio uses this number for account recovery, so use an officer's phone rather than a volunteer's.
- Twilio asks a few questions about what you're building. Any answers work; reasonable ones are SMS, Alerts & notifications, No, I don't write code, and Just me. You land in the Twilio Console with a trial account.
Step 2 — Upgrade the account and add funds
A trial account can only text numbers you've verified and puts a trial notice on every message, so it has to be upgraded before we can register anything.
- In the Console, click the Upgrade button near the top of the page (it also appears under Admin → Account billing).
- Add your payment card and enter the committee's legal name and address as the billing profile. The name on the billing profile should match the committee, not an individual.
- Add $100 of funds. Ten thousand texts cost about $120 at Twilio's rates; keep the balance above what your next blast needs. You can turn on auto-recharge later under Billing → Auto recharge.
- Confirm the account now says Upgraded at the top of the Console. If the Upgrade button is greyed out, finish the email verification first.
Step 3 — Give BeehiveText access
Choose one of the two methods. The invitation is the one we recommend: you never hand over a secret, you can watch everything we do, and you can remove us with one click when the program is over.
Option A — Invite us as an Administrator (recommended)
- In the Console open the Admin menu at the top right.
- Choose Manage users (under Account management).
- Click Invite user. On the Access step your account is already selected; in the roles list pick Administrator, then click Next.
- On the Users step type
[email protected], click the + button so the address appears as a chip, then click Next. - On the Review step check the account, the role Administrator and our address, then click Invite users. We show under Invited users until we accept.
- Back on your BeehiveText page, tick "I invited BeehiveText as an Administrator" and save. We'll confirm when we've accepted.
Option B — Create an API key for us
- In the Console open Account (top right), then API keys & tokens.
- Click Create API key. Friendly name: BeehiveText. Key type: Main. A Standard key cannot complete the registration steps, so it has to be Main.
- Copy the SID (starts with
SK) and the Secret. The secret is shown only once; if you lose it, delete the key and create another. - Also copy your Account SID (starts with
AC) from the Console home page. - Paste all three into the form on your BeehiveText page. They are encrypted the moment you save and only opened by us to set up your program. You can delete the key in Twilio at any time, which ends our access.
Step 4 — Please don't do these yourself
- Don't buy a phone number. We choose one in your area code and attach it to a properly configured messaging service.
- Don't start "Regulatory compliance" or "A2P 10DLC" in the Console. Each rejected campaign submission costs $15 and cannot be undone. Registration has to match your website pages and your Campaign Verify token exactly, and that is the part we do.
- Don't send test messages from the Console. Nothing should go out from the account until the program is registered.
What Twilio will bill your card
| Item | Amount | When |
|---|---|---|
| Brand registration (low-volume standard, with your Campaign Verify token) | $4.50 | once, at registration |
| Campaign vetting | $15 | once, at registration |
| Political campaign fee | $10 | per month while registered |
| Your phone number | $1.15 | per month |
| Text message, per 160-character segment, carrier fees included | about 1.2¢ | per message sent |
| Picture message | about 3¢ | per message sent |
| Incoming replies | under 1¢ | per reply received |
If something goes wrong
- The verification code never arrives. Request it again after a minute, or try a different mobile number. Landlines and Google Voice numbers don't work for this step.
- The card is declined. Twilio declines many prepaid and some debit cards. Use a committee credit card, and make sure the billing name matches the card.
- "Your account is under review" or "suspended". Twilio's fraud team screens new accounts. Reply to their email with your committee's website and EIN letter; it is usually cleared within a business day. Tell us and we'll pause until it clears.
- You can't find Manage users. Open the Admin menu at the top right of any Console page; it is the first group of links. Only the account Owner or an existing Administrator can invite users.
3. Campaign Verify ($95, paid by your committee)
Campaign Verify is the nonprofit that confirms political senders to the carriers. Since February 2026 every political texting program needs it. The committee requests it; we cannot do it for you, because the PIN is delivered to the contact on your public filing.
Have these ready:
- Your committee's EIN (Campaign Verify only verifies committees that have one).
- The committee name, address and contact details exactly as they appear on your public filing (Utah: your page at disclosures.utah.gov; federal: your FEC page).
- Access to the phone or email listed on that filing, because that is where the PIN goes.
- A card for the $95 fee (an expedited two-business-day option is $400).
- Go to app.campaignverify.org and choose Get verified.
- Select your committee type: candidate, party, PAC, or 527 organization.
- Enter the committee name, EIN and address exactly as on your filing. Small mismatches, such as "Committee to Elect" versus "Friends of", are the usual cause of delay.
- Choose how to receive the PIN. Text or email is immediate; postal mail takes five to ten business days.
- Pay the $95 fee.
- Enter the six-digit PIN when it arrives. Your token appears under Authorization Tokens. Copy the entire line beginning
cv|1.0|tcr|10dlc|and paste it into your BeehiveText page.
Two things to know. Tokens are issued per texting vendor: if you already text through another platform, that token cannot be reused here and you request a second one, choosing BeehiveText as the vendor. Tokens requested through November 14, 2026 are valid until January 31, 2027; a committee still texting after that re-verifies for the next cycle.
4. Your sign-up website
Carrier reviewers open a privacy policy, SMS terms and a sign-up page before they approve a program, and they read them closely. Rather than asking you to change your campaign's website, we build a small site for you at www.beehivetext.com/web/your-account/ with the page structure and wording that has already passed carrier review, and we register that address as your program's website. Your own site stays exactly as it is.
- Home page with your logo, a headline, a short description, the sign-up form (name, email and/or mobile, and a text-message consent box that is unchecked by default) and the program details reviewers look for: program name, what you send, how often, cost, STOP and HELP. Someone can sign up for email alone; a number given without the box checked is not stored.
- Privacy policy with the mobile-data sentence the carriers require, word for word.
- SMS terms: the eight sections reviewers look for.
One button builds it. "Build and publish my site" on your page pulls your logo, a photo, the description in your page's metadata and your brand color from your campaign website (it is only read, never changed), builds the pages and publishes them. We tidy the headline and wording before we register the program; email us to change anything. Then share the link on social media, in email, and at events.
Every sign-up is a consent record. We store the date, time, the exact consent wording the person agreed to, and where the sign-up came from, and you can download the list as a CSV that imports straight into your texting portal.
5. What you'll send
We write the messaging program for you from your website and your file: a program name, what subscribers receive, an honest frequency line ("up to four messages a week through Election Day" is the one that passed review) and the two sample messages the registration requires. You see it before we register anything. Two rules carry over to every real message you send later:
- Every message ends with "Reply STOP to opt out" and, for candidate committees, carries the Utah "Paid for by" line required by Utah Code 20A-11-901. Links point to your own domain, never a shortener.
- Where your numbers come from. Sign-up forms, event sheets, volunteer and donor lists, or the voter file. You confirm you have consent for what you upload; texts to people who never agreed are the fastest way to get a program suspended.
6. After approval
You get a portal address and a password for your team. Import your list, text your keyword from two phones to see the confirmation and the auto-enrollment, send a test blast to your staff, then your first real message. Sending is between 8 am and 9 pm recipient time. Replies come to the portal inbox and, if you like, to a staffer's phone.